Cat In A Topaz Tango

The rehearsal mat made an oblong pool of bright blue vinyl on the polished maple boards. This afternoon was “lift” practice. The mat reminded him of high school gym classes. Nobody wanted to be reminded of those days of infamy.

He eyed his reflection in the mirrored wall: army-green T-shirt, khaki pants, black lace-up shoes made from leather soft enough to flex like cloth. Jazz shoes, they’d told him. His hair was still spiky from “product” the show’s hairstylists insisted on. It looked a lot blonder because of the portable spray-on-tan booth the contestants had to use religiously every morning.

Its small dark space reminded him of an old-fashioned confessional, if one ever had to take all one’s clothes off to go to confession. It gave the stripped-naked soul a whole new look, not to mention the rhythmic sweep of cold dye as one assumed the position and turned.

If the object was to be reborn looking like a Beach Boy, it had worked.

Matt knew he’d hate this celebrity dancing show and all its works, but everyone, including Temple and his boss at WCOO-FM, hadn’t wanted him to miss this “opportunity.” An opportunity to look like an idiot in front of a local audience. If only the exposure was just local.

Since this was Las Vegas and nothing in Vegas was really “local,” the half-hour Hollywood gossip shows were all over the rehearsals. He never knew who would burst through that closed door besides his drill sergeant, ballet master, and dancing partner, Tatyana Tereshchenko, aka Tatyana the Terrible, five-foot-three inches of wiry and wily Russian tsunami.

She burst in now as if summoned by his thought, wearing a wispy tease of skirt over her lime-green leotard and tights, toting a bag for towel and bottled water.

“Matt-eeeu, Matt-eeeu, Matt-eeeu,” she mispronounced his name in her heavy Russian accent. “Are you ready to lift Tatyana up to the heavens today?”

“It’s just Matt,” he said. No point in correcting her. The long form of his given name was Mathias. “And I’m game for lifts if you are.”

“Of course you are,” she said. Her teaching technique was the whiplash application of carrot-and-stick in rapid alteration. She came close, suddenly kittenish. “Such lovely strong shoulders. Svimming is the most vonderful sport for dancer. Makes long, lovely muscle, all over.”

She accompanied this inciting conclusion with strokes and purrs, her position being that his ex-priest status had made him shy.

With her, a Tasmanian devil would be shy.

“But,” she added, drawing back and pulling herself up like a ballerina on pointe. “You have rhythm and we must pull that out of you before the competition begins, or Tatyana will not vin and one thing is sure: Tatyana will vin. Ca-peach? As they say on, on . . . These Three Sopranos!”

“Capeach,” Matt repeated dutifully, amused by her slaughtering the language and the TV show name, which he took as a deliberate ploy.

In a week of lessons, he’d learned Tatyana was a force of ego. She was the Yorkshire terrier that lived to boss around Great Danes. And she truly had a passion for dance, and for making him into a dancer.

“Good. You learn. With Tatyana you learn to be dancer and love it. So. Today. Surprise.”

He wasn’t surprised when the door opened again and a cameraman backed in, filming the incoming newcomers. Oh, my God! Surprise was right.

In came Ambrosia, his nightly on-air predecessor host at WCOO and his “Midnight Hour” producer, wearing a leopard-print caftan and singing “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man” while banging a jangling circle of wood and metal overhead.

The cameraman kept backing up so far he almost tripped on the floor mat, just before Matt himself leaped forward to steer him around the barrier like a balky dance partner. He’d picked up a move or twelve from the driven diva who was his coach.

The cameraman had backed up so far because Ambrosia was three-hundred-pounds-plus of quivering leopard-skin-pattern caftan, and she was followed by a chorus line of women equally larger than life and as exotically clothed as she, or more so.

They were not shy, that was for sure.

Tatyana was grinning like a demon brat.

“So, Matt-euw. You say as priest you like to visit these gospel music churches. Miz Ambrosiana has brought whole gospel group to rehearsal. You will no longer hide rhythm from those long, hot shoulder muscles and hips, right, Miz Ambrosiana?”

“Right, girlfriend! We all gonna hip-hop today!”

Ambrosia began by bumping hips with him, but not before he could perform an evasive maneuver that kept him on his feet.

“Show us what you learned at dance school today, Beach Boy,” Ambrosia urged.

Matt had heard her selecting songs that soothed and inspired her radio call-in listeners for months now. She was a wonder at massaging sad hearts and sore feelings back into some hope of functioning again. He knew her repertoire, and she knew he’d played the organ a little and liked Bob Dylan.